Once again that is different from saying “torture is ALWAYS counterproductive”
You see the problem I have is not that I love torture and you guys are beating up on one of my favorite pasttimes. The problem is that you are refusing to acknowledge that torture can even serve its purported purpose and you do it by saying things like “torture NEVER works” and “torture is ALWAYS counterproductive” because once you acknowledge that torture SOMETIMES works and that torture can SOMETIMES be productive, you are left arguing about WHEN torture is justified rather than simply banning the practice altogether because it simply doesn’t serve any purpose. A lot of subsequent posters backpedal a little bit and say “well it is never the best method of interrogation” or “it is almost never the best method of interrogation” but that is different than saying it never works.
Once you admit that torture can sometimes work, there is pressure to use torture in extraordinary cases and your definition of what constitutes an extraordinary case is probably much narrower than the general population. I think that the moral cost of torture is too great for any society that is not facing a real existential crisis to use on a regular basis but when people hear you say “torture doesn’t even work” and try to end the debate right there, people just assume you are running away from the fight because you can’t win.
Are you under the impression that we are arguing about whether we should torture people for the sake of torturing people?
“should we repeatedly drown prisoners to get valuable life saving information after we have tried other ways to get the information?” is a question that people can reasonably disagree on.
Don’t think so, the reality is that in this discussion the case of France in Algeria was reported by the French torturers to be an extraordinary case and it is looking that back then a lot of the French population did not protest to much if it was not complicit.
For my part I already reported a long time ago that torture can work on occasion, but as usual, as in the case of Qaddafi and the Bush administration and many countless ones in the past, torture ends up being used to justify a reprehensible path from the government. And in all the cases mentioned the argument can be made that torture also failed to prevent disaster. It actually caused it or made things worse.
One of the biggest problems with torture is that it makes no exception for someone who genuinely doesn’t know.
You torture until the guy confesses/tells you what he knows. What happens if he didn’t do it or doesn’t know? It would mean that the torture is ineffective and morally wrong (even more so than regular torture).
I’ve said this before but if supporters of torture want to be so gung-ho and Jack Bauer-like about it, then take responsibility for it just like when Bauer defended himself in front of Congress. All of them should gladly submit to arrest if and when the torture is proved to be done to the wrong person or if that person didn’t know anything. If they want to take the chance to save the country, then they should face a long jail term if they are wrong. This way at least, it preserves the notion that its only to be used as the last resort and not just for the hell of it
And how is that relevant to the discussion of whether or not torture works?
Hitler lost WWII, does that mean that the Biltzkrieg didn’t “work”?
Acknowledging WHAT? That the guy who was in charge of Algeria claims that he had nothing to do with torture and that the information that was gleaned through the use of torture could have been gotten in other ways? So where does he say that torture doesn’t work?
That is not the argument we are having.
The argument we are having is whether torture NEVER works. I’m glad that you aren’t saying that torture doesn’t work.
The argument we are having is whether torture is ALWAYS counterproductive. Are you saying that torture is ALWAYS counterproductive?
That is a moral argument, we are trying ton address whether torture works or not so we can get to the moral arguments. But when your argument is a moral argument that is capped off with the statement “and torture doesn’t work anyways” then you leave no room for argument unless we can address the statement that torture doesn’t work anyway.
Wait, so you think we should tell people that they can only use torture if they are willing to go to jail? We let our soldiers kill people and if they (in good faith) kill the wrong person, then its just tough fucking luck but if we (in good faith) torture the wrong person, then they go to jail?
I don’t defend torture in any but the most extreme cases because it has such a corrupting influence on organizations and is so harmful to a free society. But we are not defending torture here, we are discussing whether or not torture works. Saying that torture works is not the same thing as saying that we should use it.
Torture doesnt work in the same way that Lottery tickets arent a good investment. Yes, once in a great while someone wins. But the time, effort and money wasted chasing after that tiny chance means that it** is ***counterproductive. *
Not to mention all the intel you would have gotten had you not resorted to torture. Most of the time, torture just makes the victim decide not to give anything up.
Perhaps worth noting that the overall weight of board sentiment on this question seems to have shifted somewhat in the seven years since I started this thread.
Probably has to do with the matter having been a much more hot-button - and hence ideologically driven - issue at the time.
Seems about the same to me. The same arguments were being used then as now on pretty much both sides. What do you think are the differences between that thread and this one?
The results. BTW his others in command do point that he knew about the torture, so once again I do think his later conclusions have more weight.
Yes. As pointed before the fact that someone will indeed win the lottery does not deny that for all others the lottery will be counterproductive. We may, may, may had been lucky when getting Bin Laden (it is doubtful that torture was the key in getting him), but we lost a lot more when torture gave us justifications to invade Iraq. So as for torture being counterproductive:
You seem to be saying torture is counterproductive (which is probably wrong). But saying torture doesn’t work is like saying that lotteries don’t pay out.
Over a decade back we had the first $100 million dollar lottery jackpot in American history. I mentioned it and one of the young professionals says that he thinks that lotteries are a tax on people who can’t do math and I remarked that I can’t think of any other way that I can retire in comfort before the weekend.
So there are some times when in the interests of timing lotteries make sense. There are times where in the interests of timing torture can make sense.
And you have no proof that torture is counterproductive other than your instinct and the word of people who would be against torture no matter what.
Once again, you are talking authoritatively based on your instinct and the confirmation of people who (like you) are looking for reasons to condemn torture.
All of this is based on your instinct and the words of your fellow travellers.
You said that we were on the losing side anyway to undermine the argument for the efficacy of torture. How is that different from saying that Germany was on the losing side anyway to undermine the efficacy of blitzkriegs. IOW the fact that the Algerians ended up winning their independence is immaterial to the discussion. The question is whether the use of torture can result in any useful information (which it clearly can) and whether the use of torture is counterproductive to the overall objective you are trying to achieve which is much more up for debate.
This is not the first time we have seen this article and I noted it was written by the guy who wrote Torture and Democracy. The article never says that torture doesn’t work. It never says that it is always counterproductive (although I think that over the long run the use of torture is may very well be counterproductive, particularly ins a Democratic society).
Huh?
He never says torture doesn’t work but "the results say it doesn’t work? You mean the result of wiping out terrorism in Algeria? Or are you trying to say that because they eventually lost the war, therefore torture doesn’t work?
You make the mistake of thinking that the efficacy of torture depends on blind luck. Torture as a tool in the interrogator’s toolbox is not effective when it is used, it is used when it can be effective. The problem with torture is that you are taking out all the stops for an interrogator. You are telling them that you can do whatever the fuck you want, there are no rules limiting your behaviour. It takes an incredibly disciplined person not to become corrupt and twisted. It takes a very high level of professionalism for interrogators not to use torture as a method of confirming their biases.
I think that for the most part when you have one side making pretty absolute statements and the other side saying it depends and as the argument progresses, the side that made the absolute statements start saying things like “by NEVER I meant only sometimes but certainly not ALWAYS” then the point has been made and you can move on to other arguments.
Not a true statement, you only showed all that you willfully ignored the last cite from an intelligence and military advice group. So indeed professional people involved in intelligence already tell us how counterproductive is, it is not just a whim of “our fellow travelers”.
The “sense” that you talk about winning the lottery is not really your friend. Besides the odds even the lottery can make things go down south quickly for the winners and even the benefits to schools (where most of the money is supposed to go in the USA) can be argued.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The Lottery (HBO)
And for practical intents you are. Developed democracies already ignore guys like you and even the USA is doing that now.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Torture (HBO)
The illogical thing was to bring up the brizkrieg, and that was your fault not mine. I brought the Algerian case (that you mentioned first too) because it does counter what you spouted about torture.
Not really, as pointed before you can only use emotion to counter the lottery metaphor, the facts are indeed telling us that it is counter productive in many forms; the point stands, even when we do know that someone does win it is indeed is no reason to not point out that indeed the lottery does remain the fool’s tax, and torture remains counterproductive.
As noted before, for the Nazis and many Arab dictators, it was actually counterproductive too.
Yes.
As the CIA torture report told us:
In places were torture took place (and we have to remember that torture gave us false justifications to invade Iraq) “The CIA placed individuals with no applicable experience or training in senior detention and interrogation roles”
So your affirmation that it is “used when it can be effective” is based on wishful thinking. It is indeed the very essence, the key for why torture proponents are still out there. And it is, as pointed many times before, the real talking point for torture proponents here.
Actually, as noted, you did not counter anything, you only resorted to “killing the messenger”, wishful thinking arguments and avoiding what Stratford and many other intelligence groups are reporting.
What I get from the OP is that it is an argument of what torture offers in general and in practice. As I pointed years ago in a different thread the ones that do think torture works (even on occasion) depend on wishfully thinking that even democracies can control it properly or the intelligence one gets from it. The main reason dictators use it is not for intelligence, but for implanting fear to the population. And as another French General that did not apologized commented he was only sorry that many of the ones he ordered to torture did die before giving the information he wanted. Meaning that he indeed did not care about the intelligence he was supposedly gaining. In the end the main reason was to make sadists happy and to kill even non combatant opposition leaders **with torture gained justifications **. Argelians did not react to the fear as the French expected because it made French rule to look more barbaric than the terrorists they were supposed to be fighting. So independence was the result anyhow.
That’s why we cannot go so extreme as to torture people
Fair enough, that is one argument then. Still a big part of why we shouldn’t torture, but typically the people I’m arguing against are preternaturally convinced of their own morality that using such a perspective is a wasted gesture
Yes, and the reason why is because we should never make torture legal. However, even I can imagine in some cases where it would be necessary if I think there’s no other choice (I’d probably be wrong though). But if you’re so sure of your choices and the morality of your cause, you should be willing to suffer for it. And not only would I send people to jail for torturing the wrong person, I’d send them to jail for torturing the right person too, because torture should not ever be used.
